# Extra-Terrestrial Questions
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extra-terrestrial-questions/155602
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [February 17, 2003, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extra-terrestrial-questions/155602 "2003-02-17T09:19:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2003, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extra-terrestrial-questions/155602/41 "2003-02-20T20:47:31Z")
Probably the [Forge Of God](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0765301075/qid=1045773710/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/002-8209409-9296835?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)
although Niven, and many others, imagine ‘Hawks’ out there to eat the noisy radio civilisations
This imagines a competitive ecology in the galaxy-
in reality there is plenty of resources of all types available, particularly energy, metals and volatiles,
and competition will not be a problem until the galaxy is close to becoming a [Kardaschev type III](http://www.orionsarm.com/eg/k/Ka-Kd.html#Kardaschev_types) civilisation
which won’t be for a little while yet
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2003, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extra-terrestrial-questions/155602/42 "2003-02-20T21:29:04Z")
There are lots of good reasons why we’ve never been contacted, even if there is intelligent life out there. Interstellar travel may be impractical. The other intelligent cultures may not overlap ours. They may be advanced enough not to want to contaminate us. (Look what happened to cultures contacted by Europe, after all.)
It’s more interesting to think what the body features of a technological civilization would be. The details of our features may be accidental, but they all have survived evolutionary competition. For instance, there is no reason to think that ETs will resemble primates, but it seems that bilateral symetry is a successful strategy. No matter how smart dolphins are, they are never going to develop civilization in their current form. Perhaps there is a small set of successful body formats, with lots of variability in the details within each set. But if a dinosaur had evolved intelligence, it would not have looked all that different from us in the general sense.
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### Author:  [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2003, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extra-terrestrial-questions/155602/43 "2003-02-20T22:07:48Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by eburacum45 \*
> \*\*Probably the [Forge Of God](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0765301075/qid=1045773710/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/002-8209409-9296835?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)
> although Niven, and many others, imagine ‘Hawks’ out there to eat the noisy radio civilisations
>
> \*\*
Dead bang on! And quick to boot!
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### Author:  [@BioHazard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BioHazard)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2003, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extra-terrestrial-questions/155602/44 "2003-02-20T23:24:24Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by elucidator \*
> \*\*The Intergalactic Chat Room:
>
> “Hi” _(4.3 years…)_
> “Hi!” _(4.3 years…)_
> “LOL!” _(4.3 years…)_
> “ROFLMAO!” _(4.3 years…)_
> “CYA” _(4.3 years…)_
> “Bi.” _(4.3 years…)_ \*\*
try:
“Hi” _(8.6 years…)_
“Hi!” _(8.6 years…)_
“LOL!” _(8.6 years…)_
“ROFLMAO!” _(8.6 years…)_
“CYA” _(8.6 years…)_
“Bi.” _(8.6 years…)_ \*\*
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### Author:  [@owlofcreamcheese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlofcreamcheese)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2003, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extra-terrestrial-questions/155602/45 "2003-02-21T05:39:08Z")
maybe life is really really common.
do you go in every house on your street to check if someone lives there?
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### Author:  [@GOM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GOM)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2003, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extra-terrestrial-questions/155602/46 "2003-02-21T17:12:39Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by xgxlx \*
> \*\*If the universe is, in fact, infinite, and life evolving anywhere is possible, then it is also very probable. No matter what the odds, when working with infinite space…anything is possible. \*\*
No. Your starting point is incorrect, which invalidates your conclusion that “anything is possible”. The universe is not, in fact, infinite in either age or dimension.
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### Author:  [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2003, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extra-terrestrial-questions/155602/47 "2003-02-21T17:43:00Z")
Bilateral symmetry is a good design, and bipedalism is also good,
but a segmented arthropod type arrangement has also been very successful on Earth.
Multiple appendages which can be specialised for tasks like eating, manipulation, mating and poison fangs are a useful multipurpose toolkit, and would be perhaps usefully scaled up to human size or larger if somehow coupled with an endoskeleton…
remember the extraterrestials would have a wholly independent evolution, and so any feature that evolved would be the product of parallel evolution.
One design I like is the [bushbot](http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/robot.papers/1999/NASA.report.99/9901.NASA.S3.html)of Hans Moravec, if such a creature could evolve in nature- it has a form of radial symmetry.
It is my humble opinion that any interstellar capable species would be very likely to be able to redesign themselves
as will we when we reach that stage
whether we will want to is another question
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### Author:  [@GOM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GOM)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2003, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extra-terrestrial-questions/155602/48 "2003-02-21T18:09:11Z")
Life on Mars? Some current speculation:
[http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=573&ncid=573&e=18&u=/nm/20030220/od\_nm/space\_mars\_dc](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=573&ncid=573&e=18&u=/nm/20030220/od_nm/space_mars_dc)
**Life on Mars Might Lurk in Gullies** - Scientists
Thu Feb 20, 7:44 AM ET
By Deborah Zabarenko
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Life on Mars might lurk in long gullies carved by liquid water underneath a dirty but protective blanket of snow, astronomers said on Wednesday.
* * *
If we ever get around to sending people to Mars, I expect we will find life there. However I also expect it to use DNA and be related to life on Earth.
How could it be related?
Life could have been transported from Earth to Mars by a violent collision from an asteroid or a comet. I suspect we will only find very small life on Mars. I could be wrong, of course.
Here’s what one highly regarded old guy thinks:
“ **I’m fairly convinced that we have discovered life on Mars** ,” Clarke told [SPACE.com](http://SPACE.com) Sunday as Buzz Aldrin listened. “There are some incredible photographs from [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory], which to me are pretty convincing proof of the existence of large forms of life on Mars! Have a look at them. I don’t see any other interpretation.”
[http://www.space.com/peopleinterviews/clarke\_believe\_010227.html](http://www.space.com/peopleinterviews/clarke_believe_010227.html)
YMMV
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